Beauty...
By Lauryn Evarts Bosstick
Hello to the Molly Sims community!
My name is Lauryn Evarts Bosstick & I’m the creator of The Skinny Confidential. I’m so excited to be with you today to share the top 5 things that helped me in the postpartum period. To be fully transparent, I struggled with postpartum depression & anxiety, so this article really hits home for me. The subject is near and dear so I did a lot of preventative things so that this whole depression/anxiety situation didn’t rear its ugly head.
Just know that if you are experiencing depression or anxiety postpartum- IT WILL PASS. But in the meantime, here are some things you can do that will hopefully make your life & mental state a little better.
P.S. Molly also shared her #1 tips for postpartum on my site, The Skinny Confidential.
The Wim Hof breathing method totally changed my postpartum experience. Wim Hof was introduced to me by 2 of my favorite people: Tim Ferriss & Ryan Holiday. He’s known as The Iceman and has set many Guinness World Records for, well, basically, being an Iceman. His body can withstand super cold temperatures and he is the definition of an extreme athlete. He was on the HIM & HER podcast not too long ago too. Wim has run marathons barefoot and shirtless near the Arctic Circle, he swims under the ice at the North Pole and has sat in ice baths for 1.5 hours. He says what got him through these accomplishments was his breathing practice.
As my research into Wim went on, I found out that his wife had committed suicide after a long depression and Wim had developed this meditation to help people live happier, healthier stronger lives. What he ended up with is a method that has amazing benefits. Oh, and Gwyneth Paltrow is a big fan too. So much so, that Wim is featured on episode 2 of The Goop Lab on Netflix.
Anyway, let’s get right into it…
First, find a comfortable place to sit. Lately, my favorite places have been somewhere in nature or in front of the Joovv red light (see all those benefits here ). So sit down, relax, and follow Wim’s method on YouTube which is about 10 minutes long.
What you do is take 30 quick, deep breaths, inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth. Then, you take another deep breath and exhale for as long as you can until you need to take a breath again. Inhale again, hold it for 10 seconds and repeat.
It might sound confusing, but check out his video for specifics. It’s super easy to follow when you do it with him and seriously, it’s been LIFE-CHANGING for me.
Here’s the real cherry on top…the second you’re done with the breathwork, hop into a freezing f-ing cold shower for 3 minutes. Personally, I like to listen to The Daily Stoic podcast by Ryan Holiday while I do this because most of the episodes are 2-4 minutes long.
So set your alarm for 3 minutes and scrape your tongue, dry brush (but it’s not dry cause it’s in the shower LOL ), and wash with the best ever Nécessaire eucalyptus body wash.
Afterward, you will immediately feel rejuvenated from the breathwork and the cold shower. Wim recommends doing the cold shower RIGHT after the breathwork.
Getting my thyroid & hormones checked was one of THE BEST things I did for myself postpartum. A friend recommended I go to a specialist to get all my levels checked. So I did. And doing so, I found out I had low levels of progesterone, testosterone and that my thyroid was very low. This made it hard for me to lose weight.
I gained 55 lbs during pregnancy and it wouldn’t come off. Once I got my hormones sorted out, 15 pounds flew off of me in a month.
If you’re in the postpartum period, I highly recommend getting your hormones checked. After a baby, they really can be all out of whack. Just be sure to go to a hormone specialist, not your GP. They’ll take your blood, then you go back in to talk about your results & solutions. You won’t regret it, I promise.
Getting outside, taking walks, and immersing yourself in nature is one of the best things you can do for yourself. My husband, dogs and I would take the baby out in the stroller (with a huge cup of water, ice, lemon, and cayenne pepper, of course ) and just stroll. It was so nice to get my body moving every morning.
Another great thing to do is grounding. Sure, it’s kinda like walking, but you have to be barefoot. Bear with me… Grounding, or ‘earthing,’ whatever you want to call it, has absolutely changed the game for me. First, let’s start off with this question: when was the last time you let your bare feet touch the actual earth? Not your marble or hardwood floor, or your carpet. I’m not even talking about your balcony. The actual earth- the grass, the sand, the beach. To be honest, 99% of people can’t even remember.
Basically, the grounding theory is that our body is supposed to have contact with the earth as much as possible ( like without shoes ). Electrons in free radical form (yuck- from wifi ) accumulate in us and direct contact with the earth balances this out with the opposite effect. Back in the day, this would happen naturally because we weren’t wearing shoes. Now we need to make it happen. But let’s dive deeper.
Just remember, these are special shoes & if there’s rubber on your shoes, that means they are NOT grounding you.
♡ Reduces inflammation.
♡ Improves sleep.
♡ Improves immunity.
♡ Reduces some factors of cardiovascular disease.
♡ Reduces pain.
♡ Speeds healing time.
♡ Helps with period cramps.
♡ Reduces electric fields induced on the body.
♡ Improves glucose regulation.
♡ Reduces indicators of osteoporosis.
♡ Reduces anxiety & depression.
♡ Supports adrenal health.
♡ & like I said, can really cure a hangover.
The only technique I’ve ever tried is putting my bare feet on the ground- the beach is my favorite. But I’d love to try a grounding mat soon.
Trust me & just try it. You’ll feel better. And if you aren’t postpartum, you can still do this- it’s a total hangover cure!
Red light therapy is totally part of my life so I do it all the time, but especially postpartum I made sure to wake up and do it for 10 minutes while I did my breathwork. So let’s get into the benefits of red light therapy and how to do it.
♡ safe & well-tolerated.
♡ reduces inflammation.
♡ less muscle pain & exercise soreness.
♡ natural pain relief treatment.
♡ helps with arthritis & joint pain.
♡ helps wound & burn healing.
♡ can boost your mood & lower depression.
♡ helps with bone & tissue injuries.
Also, I want to mention it’s helped people with the appearance of hyperpigmentation. Goodbye brown mustache!! But seriously, it’s also shown positive results for people with vitiligo, eczema, and psoriasis.
Michael, my husband, has a big Joovv red light panel in his office. It’s big, it works, it gets the job done. As I said, I’ll stand in front of this for 10 minutes a day, and then at night, we use red light bulbs in our lamps.
Yup, red light bulbs, that you can buy on Amazon, to help us wind down at night. They really create this peaceful vibe in the bedroom & lower your cortisol, the stress hormone, before you go to sleep. It really has been life-changing.
Our cells need natural light to function, just like they need water and nutrients from food. Unfortunately, most people don’t get as much natural light as they need for optimal health (the average American spends over 90% of their time indoors). Red light therapy allows you to supplement the light you get from your environment with concentrated wavelengths of red and near-infrared light at home.
Red light therapy works by enhancing your energy production at a cellular level. Healthy, natural light stimulates the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell, and enhances the cellular respiration process that makes ATP (adenosine triphosphate) energy. Humans make ATP every day and it fuels everything we do. The more energy our cells can make, the better our bodies look, heal, feel and perform.
The big Joovv panels are an investment (but Michael and I both think it’s so worth it). Aside from all the benefits of red light therapy, it just sets a relaxing, peaceful situation. Isn’t that just what you need postpartum?
It goes without saying that other lifestyle choices can help big time too. Lots of celery juice, lots of green juice, tons of sleep, tons of water, MOVEMENT (worked out every day TSC Body App or Pilates), and surrounding myself with family and friends were also things that helped so much.
I really hope these tips bring you some solace if you’re going through a hard time postpartum. If you want to hear more about this, I recorded a whole podcast about it. It’s a solo episode- just me talking about my postpartum experience & the hormone situation.
Thank you so much to all of you for having me! I’m so looking forward to more collabs and swaps with Molly in the future.
xx,
Lauryn Evarts Bosstick, creator of The Skinny Confidential.